“Here is the myth presented as direct translation from the tablets themselves, where we have them, without a “modern retelling” or desperately opaque circumscriptions.”

Stephany’s arrangement of the ancient Babylonian myth of creation is much more approachable and readable than what I remember of my 1990s grad school days. Here is the myth presented as direct translation from the tablets themselves, where we have them, without a “modern retelling” or desperately opaque circumscriptions. Both the Creation story of the world and mankind are here along with “Atrahasis,” the Babylonian flood myth. This alone makes the book a great read for those interested in a more authentic experience of this earliest of tales.

That said, I found myself still wishing for something a little different. Stephany offers some introductory remarks, all welcome for a new reader, but these are quite brief, fewer than 10 pages to account for the contextual history and import of the tablets. Likewise, the Endnotes are frustrating in their thinness, clarifying some terms here and there.

This leaves the text to speak for itself, largely, and it almost does, save for the translation itself. Stephany chose to complete the translations by filling in the missing lines with best guesses or lines from other texts of similar nature. Sometimes this is a line or two; sometimes it is a gap of 20+ lines. These new lines are marked clearly, true; and it’s a fine editorial choice, I guess, IF he also included explanations for where these lines came from and why they were selected.  Further, where more than one tablet is synthesized to tell a narrative, Stephany chooses to repeat the sequence nearly word for word–sometimes across pages–which throws the tale out of chronology. Where these syntheses occurred is not marked. In fact, no marginalia are included at all (tablet or line numbers, footnotes over endnotes, and the like). No other notes or supplemental essays

As a result, this makes for more difficult reading for the amateur (like me) who seeks explanations for what he is reading and how it fits together.  We are left to our own devices to research elsewhere. And for someone more academically-driven to study, the text’s absence of marginalia or methodology will certainly be perplexing, perhaps rendering the translation with little merit. On the positive side, if you are a reader who wants to see how Babylon’s myth is really brought to us and won’t question the translation or archaeology of it, this is a fine and relatively quick read.